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Дата 15.11.2021 09:59:10 Найти в дереве
Рубрики WWII; Флот; ВВС; Версия для печати

Цитаты

о сроке обучения:
For example, the family of a P-47 pilot with the 56th Fighter Group are still dismayed that this young man was sent to war with only six weeks of flight training and believe this contributed to his death in July 1944.Further research revealed that he had received the full amount of flight training and the six weeks they referred to was his transition time in the P-47, and, at the time of his training, in all likelihood, he had received 60 hours of flight time. It has been noted previously that 60 hours was above the average for transition training.
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про потери во время обучения:
In late 1944, the New York Times reported that, since the start of the war, 11,000 flyers had been killed in 5,600 accidents in the United States alone. . For example, during the first 32 months of the war, the Army Air Forces lost 3,300 more planes in accidents in the continental United States than in combat.
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For example, in the last six months of 1943, the Army Air Forces lost over 3,000 men and 10,000 aircraft in accidents.
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О том кто учил и как учил:
During the first half of 1944, over 1,100 accidents were attributed to instructor error.The Army Air Force considered this to be inevitable given “the size of the AAF training program and the premium on speedy output of pilots….” The Army Air Forces attributed instructor error to two causes: “First was the impossibility of always selecting as instructors those most fit to provide adequate instruction; and second was the difficulty of establishing a uniform and adequate course of instruction which would be universally applied.” In addition, in some cases the instructors were charged with permitting students to commit unsafe acts or not intervening quickly enough to prevent an accident.In many cases, the instructors themselves set the tone for acceptable behavior in the air. Instructors were known to play chicken with trains at crossings or to go “hot-dogging” over the houses of girlfriends. In addition, in some cases the instructor was not much better trained in the aircraft being flown than were the cadets. One cadet recalled that his advanced flight-training instructor had exactly four hours more time in the AT-17 twin-engine trainer than his students. He further stated that the instructor in this instance, besides being a bad instructor, was also afraid of the plane and could not fly it very well.
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о качестве обслуживания тренировочных самолетов:
A 1943 report concluded, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that, even in cases where mechanical failure was the cause, “…it might be surmised that often the maintenance personnel may not be fulfilling their duties properly, but since the pilot should be able to land in spite of the engine failure, he is charged with the blame.
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о качестве курсантов:
. "…most of the British students were unaccustomed to driving automobiles and did not have mechanical toys as children. Consequently, it was believed, they were lacking in mechanical aptitude. Poor eyesight was also blamed, because the RAF’s standards of visual acuity were lower than those of the Army Air Corps."
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О самолетах - гарантированных гробах при обучении
"In his memoir Global Mission, Arnold discussed dealing with perception and reality when it came to aircraft. During World War One, the DH-4 was called the “Flying Coffin” by the crews because the fuel tank was located between the pilot and observer. After the fuel tank was moved, the crews felt more secure and the name was dropped. Arnold stated that he had observed the same phenomenon during World War Two concerning the B-26 Marauder, a twinengine medium bomber, and the P-38Lightning, a twin-engine single-seat fighter. For example, in the first six months of 1944 over 25 of all P-38 accidents were fatal, while the other four primary fighter types averaged fewer than thirteen fatal accidents all combined.
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At one point, in 1943, the maintenance problems with the B-26 were so severe that at one school there were only nine aircraft for 92 students. In another instance, the demand for pilots forced the graduation of one class after only one solo flight. Because of its reputation as a deadly airplane, emergency procedures received more emphasis in transition training for the B-26 than any other aircraft during the war.
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Что-то мне подсказывает, что наши пилоты делали на Пе-2 больше учебных вылетов...

Были ли тяжелые бомбардировщики более безопасными? Тоже нет:
The two primary heavy bombers throughout the war, the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B24 Liberator, accounted for 32 percent of the flight training fatalities in the Continental United States. However, the B-24 was the deadlier of the two (Table 6). Between 1942 and 1943, the B-24 was the deadliest bomber during training. In 1943 alone, 850 men lost their lives in 298 accidents.965 One group lost seven planes and 43 men in one six-week period. At a 1943 training conference concerning the B-24, it was agreed that “the actual flying of a B-24 airplane by a young [new] pilot [because it was a more complex and demanding aircraft], was thirty percent more difficult than the flying of a B-17 airplane, as the B-17 was more conventional in design and operation and was more like what the young pilot had been accustomed to. Instrument training, in particular, was much easier to accomplish in a B-17 than in a B-24 airplane.” Philip Ardery, a B-24 instructor, stated in his memoirs that a spate of crashes by B24s was attributed [by the pilots] to “poorly rebuilt engines” and green pilots unfamiliar with emergency procedures.He recalled that the result of these crashes was “near panic among the pilots.”
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Может быть Б-29 был безопасным? Да щас! Он был настолько опасным, что летать на нем боялись все - каждые два дня горел двигатель на самолете.
After the B-26, the next most infamous airplane for accidents was the B-29 Superfortress. The B-29 represented a giant leap in technology and complexity for the Army Air Forces. In addition, a significant amount of financial and material resources had been diverted to the B-29 program; therefore, special steps were taken to insure the crews were properly trained. When it was introduced, it was deemed so advanced that the Army Air Forces established special requirements for assignment to that plane. For instance, priority was given to pilots with 1,000 hours of four-engine flying time. In addition, according to the official history of combat crew training, accidents with the B-29 occurred so frequently that more instruction on bailout and ditching procedures was recommended along with reduced load limits during the initial training flights. Over time, the B-29 began gaining a reputation similar to that of the B-26 and began causing a similar concern among the senior leaders of the Army Air Forces. One example was a letter from Brigadier General Lauris Norstad, Chief of Staff of the first unit to be equipped with the B-29, to the Chief of Air Staff concerning the increasing number of B-29 accidents caused by engine fires. Norstad stated that at the current rate it would not be unforeseeable for the rate to be “something like one ‘accident’ per day.” He gave no explanation for putting the word accident in quotation marks. However, General Norstad’s prediction was not far off the mark; between 1 September and 24 November 1944, the rate was nearly one accident every two days. Engine fires continued to be a problem in the B-29 program. For example, in a letter to Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Barney Giles, Major General Robert B. Williams, the Commanding General 2nd Air Force, voiced his concern that the fear of engine fires in B-29s was causing crews to abort training flights over minor malfunctions. The Army Air Forces’ response to this problem was similar to that taken with the B-26. However, there was a chauvinistic twist. One of the Army Air Forces’ most experienced pilots with the B29, Colonel Paul Tibbets, was tasked to find a way to convince the men that the plane was safe. His solution was to train two WASP pilots to fly the B-29
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что же придумало командование? Поменять движки на самолете? А нефига! Давайте посадим женщин в кабину!
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He chose Dora Dougherty and Dorothea Johnson Moorman from a group of eight volunteers at Eglin Field, FL. In a matter of days, Tibbets trained Dora as the pilot and Dorothea as co-pilot. Not surprisingly, one of the plane’s engines caught fire during the check ride but both followed the standard emergency procedures and safely landed the plane. The next step in Tibbets’ plan was to take the women around the B-29 airfields to put on demonstration flights to shame the men and show them that “even a woman” could fly the plane
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И вот казалось бы война с немцами закончилась и можно тренировать и тренировать экипажи! Ага щас!
18 June 1945 from the Headquarters of Flying Training Command to the Commander of Randolph Field, where B-29 transition training was taking place, informed the commander that the training must conform to Army Air Force policies “as closely as possible. However, you are authorized to graduate [a] crew when the airplane commander has accomplished one day solo and one night solo flight and has a minimum of 15 hours.” The memorandum from Flying Training Command went on to add “In all instances the pilot, copilot, and flight engineer of the crew will receive as much ground training as possible,” leaving the definition of “as possible” open to interpretation.
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Или вот "Вы заставляете нас летать на гробах по-американски":
Beginning in 1944, a disproportionate number of accidents began to occur with the AT-6 trainer. The Office of Flying Safety began a special investigation into the problem. It was eventually determined that the majority of accidents were attributable to a “material failure of the fuel system resulting in fire or explosion.” In early 1945, General Arnold became so concerned about fires in C-46 transport aircraft that he directed a special study be completed to find out why these fires were occurring. The report concluded that, although 10 percent of C-46 accidents between September 1944 and February 1945 had been attributed to fire, a closer examination of the accident reports indicated that only 5 percent could be specifically attributed to it. The rest were the result of maintenance or mechanical failure In addition, in some cases, the “material failure” could be traced back to the manufacturer. In 1943, there was a scandal concerning defective engines being produced by the Curtiss-Wright company. The Truman Committee, formally known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, announced in July, after a six-month investigation, that the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, with the aid of Army Air Forces personnel, had conspired to sell the government defective engines Moreover, in an interesting memorandum, the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff for Material and Services reviewed the accidents of four prototype P-80 jet aircraft. He noted the “mechanical failure” in the case of each accident; however, no mention was made of the fate of the pilots.
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А нет ли у тебя сукин сын, умысла на теракт?
During the investigation into the ditching of a B-17, the investigators noted discrepancies between the pilot’s account and those of some members of the crew. The board received permission to
interview the pilot using sodium pentothal. Nevertheless, even under the effects of the drug, the pilot’s account remained the same. The report went on to caution: The Office of the Surgeon General wishes to make clear its policy on the use of sodium pentothal. Pentothal is to be used in the investigation of aircraft accidents only if a psychiatrically trained medical officer feels that an amnesia exists. Pentothal is not to be used when it is felt that the subject is not telling the truth, unless its use is ordered by the President of the Court Martial Board or by other competent authority. Then it should be given only by a medical officer trained in the use of pentothal and should be given in the presence of competent witnesses.
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кое-кто даже начал задаваться вопросом - а не является ли задачей подготовки пилотов полет в один конец? Так сказать американский вариант "трупами завалили".

In a speech criticizing the Senate War Investigating Committee on 11 January 1945, Senator William Langer of North Dakota also questioned the accident rate in the Army Air Forces. Within five days, the Air Staff had prepared a rebuttal demonstrating that the accident rate had been reduced by 51 percent since Pearl Harbor, while acknowledging that the fatality rate had only been reduced by 10 percent.
At times, the staff had to answer Congressional inquiries about combat accidents. In a letter to her Congressman, Charles L. Gifford, one mother asked if he would inquire into the facts about her son’s death as a B-24 pilot in a flying accident over England. From the members of the crew she ascertained that the plane was “war weary” with over 105 missions to its credit. In reply to this Congressional inquiry, the Army Air Forces congressional liaison assured Congressman Gifford that there were policies and procedures in place to insure that the emphasis was not only on “getting the planes to the target but on getting them back again.” The staff officer also informed the Congressman that while “accidents sometimes occur” he should also know that the accident rate had been reduced to a “residual minimum